July 14, 2017

"The columnist Molly Ivins made a national reputation as a humor writer by lampooning the people we elect to office. One of my favorites in this category was Mike Martin, a state representative from Longview. In 1981, someone shotgunned the trailer he lived in during his months in Austin. Martin was inside, and was slightly injured. He declared that the shooting was in reprisal for an investigation he was pursuing involving a satanic cult. Later, his cousin admitted that he had fired the weapon at Martin’s behest, ostensibly to gain Martin sympathy votes. (Martin was running for reëlection.) Martin fled Austin, but, as Ivins noted, the police 'tracked him to earth at his momma’s house, where he was found hiding in the stereo cabinet.' She added, 'He always did want to be the Speaker.'"

This is poo. I’m not a subscriber to New Yorker. I cannot read the article. If Molly Ivins is involved, and one subject line is a politician ordering a shooting of himself to gain sympathy votes, then I’m guessing that the punchline is that every state politician in Texas is going to order self-shootings for sympathy votes, and end up succeeding in getting mortally shot (gotta do it big in Texas), and that is how the swamp in Texas will be drained.

It won’t be bipartisan fighting.

It will be each politician getting sucked into the Great Singularity of his or her own party, while suicidally pleading for sympathy from the Whole Cosmos of Texas Voters.

I knew when Trump was elected that The New Yorker would have dyspepsia, but I didn't anticipate the depth of their despair and the height of their dudgeon. It's the gift that keeps on giving. Thank you, Jeebus.

America’s Future Is Texas/With right-wing zealots taking over the legislature even as the state’s demographics shift leftward, Texas has become the nation’s bellwether,

Are lefties moving to Texas in droves? What's behind the assumption that demographics portend a lefty future? Are south-of-the border immigrants on board with gun control, unrestricted abortion, and transexual rights?

Top officials in the Democratic National Committee are worried about a sudden drop in voter registrations in Colorado, concerned that President Donald Trump’s new election commission is encouraging Democrats across the country to remove themselves from the electoral grid for fear of revealing personal information to the GOP leadership.

Led by DNC Chairman Tom Perez, they’ve begun an effort — in conjunction with the Colorado Democratic Party — to persuade other members of the party’s rank-and-file to stay registered.

That last part should read...

"Led by DNC Chairman Tom Perez, they’ve begun an effort — in conjunction with the Colorado Democratic Party — to persuade other members of the party’s rank-and-file to keep their dead relatives and out of state family members and illegals registered risking jail time for voter fraud."

I once spent a weekend with Molly Ivins at a small house party in east Texas. While sometimes funny she mostly spent the weekend making snarky remarks about the people who didn't agree with her politics, She didn't like me reminding her of her own privileged background, especially her having graduated from The St. John's School.She grew up in the River Oaks section of Houston, something I wouldn't let her forget.

Molly Ivins had this condescending style of humor, call it nasty, mean, and petty. For an article predicated on shifting future demographics, quoting Ivins seems a little odd. Of course, by doing so it reveals the perspective of the author; somewhere to the left of Karl Marx.

On 60 Minutes back in 2006, Daniel Shorn said:There has been no shortage of great characters in the governor's mansion of the great state of Texas. There was Ma Ferguson, who, on the subject of teaching foreign languages, said if English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for Texans. And there was Sam Houston, who beat an opposing politician, literally throttled him with his cane. There was Ann Richards, who described George Bush senior as "Poor George, he was born with a silver foot in his mouth."

Then there was Kinky Friedman, a 2006 gubernatorial candidate, better known for his singing career. Kinky Freidman and his Texas Jewboys toured with Bob Dylan in the mid-70s, singing ballads with titles like "How Can I Tell You I Love You (When You're Sitting On My Face)" and "They Ain't Makin' Jews Like Jesus Anymore."

In 2006 he lost his bid for Texas Governor failing in his goal to "dewussify" the Lone Star State, getting only 12% of the votes. How can we not mention campaign slogans like: "How Hard Could It Be?", "Why The Hell Not?", "My Governor is a Jewish Cowboy" and "He ain't Kinky, he's my Governor"

Said Kinky: "Telling the truth is what I do and as, you know, the old Turkish proverb …'If you tell the truth, have one foot in the stirrup.'"

In 1995, conservative humorist Florence King accused Ivins of plagiarizing.

"The American Spectator‘s R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. sided with King, writing that ”the cleverest and boldest commentator on the American left” has finally revealed ”the source of her prodigious talent…Molly Ivins Can’t Say That, Can She? Obviously she can, but only after reading Miss King.”

Ivins, 51, a syndicated columnist for the Star-Telegram, told The Washington Post she had a ”moral obligation” to apologize for the paragraphs ”that should have been directly attributed to Florence King,” but stopped short of admitting to plagiarism. ”I have no idea how the indirect quotations got scrambled up. I thought I had credited her every time I used her.”

That wasn’t enough for King, who issued a statement saying ”Molly Ivins brags that she’s a left-wing, aging Bohemian, non-lesbian journalist who fears no authority, so let me brag that I’m a gentleman, and that if we had the right kind of laws in this country, I’d challenge her to a duel over this.”

"Then there was Kinky Friedman, a 2006 gubernatorial candidate, better known for his singing career. Kinky Freidman and his Texas Jewboys toured with Bob Dylan in the mid-70s, singing ballads with titles like "How Can I Tell You I Love You (When You're Sitting On My Face)" and "They Ain't Makin' Jews Like Jesus Anymore."

Back when I was a thoughtless liberal member of the edublob, I thought Molly Ivins was smart and funny. I was younger, dumber, and much less wise then than I am now. When I could finally see the contempt in the humor, it wasn't so funny any more. Kind of like discovering who the mark is in a con game when it turns out to be you.

People who spout demographics seldom look at on the ground facts. Texas, unlike my experience with California, is highly intermingled Hispanic and Anglo. Offspring of such unions are - Hispanic. And would be for several generations of Anglo recombination. The advantage is in being Hispanic, government wise. San Antonio is about 60% Hispanic but a lot of them, like granddaughter #2, can't speak any more Spanish than I can. We have dark brown Smiths and pasty white Lopezes. My white enough to be the definition waiter son has startled more than one party with his ability to speak the local TexMex.

As luck would have it, I read the New Yorker article about Texas on the flight from Dallas to Philadelphia en route to visiting my east coast family. It, like so many such articles about this part of the country, had the "Gorillas in the Mist" feel to it- and, as Glenn says, if you like more Trump, this is how you get more Trump.The upcoming HuffPo safari will be stopping in Odessa, Texas, one of the few cities they are visiting that did not vote for Hillary! (69%-28% for Trump). Maybe they will learn something. Maybe not.

FullMoon's neighbor is prolly one of them Damn Yankees that invaded our Great State lookin for a piece of the pie! Them assholes is makin the state unlivable! Stay the Hell away if ya don't like bullshit!

I lived in Longview, TX, in the 1980's and remember the Mike Martin incident. We loved living there, except for the heat, humidity, cockroaches, and boom-and-bust cycles tied to the price of oil. The politics at the state and local level were always entertaining if not outright crazy.

"Happily, Molly Ivins died what I am assured was a horrible death by cancer."

Only a very terrible human being could be happy for the "horrible death by cancer" of another because he disliked the politics and opinions of the deceased. (It's not as if she initiated or maintained America on a years-long path of murder, torture, destruction, and terror on the other side of the world. One can take one's pick of who I'm referring to...there's more than one.)

Only a very terrible human being could be worthy of a "horrible death by cancer" and Molly Ivins was a very terrible human being. She named her dog Shit. That is one fucked up woman.

She would, undoubtedly, vigorously express such sentiments about people she opposed or disliked, either flatly or with coy litotes/praeteritio. There was no decency in her of the sort you evince and her decorum requiem is to receive none. I spurn her with my heel.

One is allowed to make these judgments for oneself. Nobody has to agree. And it's not like it matters now, certainly least of all to her.

Hello All from Galveston Island in the Great State of Texas! Here is something that you can take to the bank - real Texans simply don't give a fuck what the New Yorker magazine writes about them. We always have a thread of liberals (Molly Ivins was one) bemoaning that we cannot become more Yankeefied. But somehow, we keep avoiding it. I used to work in a Half Price Books store about three blocks from the State capitol building. Sales of pornography doubled every time the legislature was in session. But that was only once every two years, one of the smartest things ever, as they can only do half the damage of a normal legislature.